There’s still time to plant lettuce in your garden

QI am confused about the timing for seeding and transplanting vegetables to be harvested in fall and winter. Can you point me to a reliable timetable guide? I suppose I’m too late for this year.

AIt’s not too late. August 10 is my traditional last date for seeding lettuces. For this sowing, I use cold hardy varieties like Rouge d’Hiver and Winter Density (West Coast Seeds). Look, too, for fall and winter vegetable transplants (kale, lettuce, fall and winter cabbage, cauliflower, purple sprouting broccoli) at local garden centres this month.

Variables like the current year’s weather pattern and the nature of the garden site make planning the fall and winter vegetable garden a bit tricky. An open, fully sunny location generally allows for later planting. My vegetable plots, semi-enclosed by towering forest trees, demand earlier plantings than the usually recommended timings, because I need to allow more time in the partly shaded garden for the plants to develop adequately before the weather turns cold.

A long, warm and sunny autumn will enable later plantings to develop rapidly, while cold, rainy weather in the fall will slow the maturing of vegetables for fall, winter and early spring eating.

Charted seeding and transplanting guides can be found in the West Coast Seeds catalogue and in Linda Gilkeson’s Year-Around Harvest: Winter Gardening on the Coast (lindagilkeson.ca).

For “delayed,” slow-growth garden sites, here are some timings that work for me.

Leeks. Seed indoors in February. Transplant early April.

Parsnips. Seed outdoors March or April.

Winter cabbage, winter cauliflower. Seed indoors May to early June.

Over-wintering cauliflower and purple sprouting broccoli. Seed indoors around midJune.

Radicchio. Seed indoors late June to early July.

Carrots and beets. Seed outdoors at the beginning of July.

Lettuce, endive, escarole. Seed indoors last week in July. Transplant late August to Early September. Or, direct seed outdoors around August 10.

Spinach, mizuna and other hardy greens. Seed outdoors early August.

Helen Chesnut favours hardy varieties of lettuce, like Winter Density, for sowing at this time of year. It’s also not too late to seed endive and escarole around this time.